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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 7th, 2023

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  • What’s fun is determining which function in that list of functions actually is the one where the bug happens and where. I don’t know about other langauges, but it’s quite inconvenient to debug one-linres since they are tougher to step through. Not hard, but certainly more bothersome.

    I’m also not a huge fan of un-named functions so their functionality/conditions aren’t clear from the naming, it’s largely okay here since the conditional list is fairly simple and it uses only AND comparisons. They quickly become mentally troublesome when you have OR mixed in along with the changing booleans depending on which condition in the list you are looking at.

    At the end of the day though, unit tests should make sure the right driver is returned for the right conditions. That way, you know it works, and the solution is resistant to refactor mishaps.



  • But nothing is forcing you to check exeptions in most languages, right?

    While not checking for exceptions and .unwrap() are pretty much the same, the first one is something you get by not doing anything extra while the latter is entirely a choice that has to be made. I think that is what makes the difference, and in similar ways why for example nullable enabled project in C# is desired over one that is not. You HAVE to check for null, or you can CHOOSE to assume it is not by trying to use the value directly. To me it makes a difference that we can accidentally forget about a possible exception or if we can choose to ignore it. Because problems dealt with early at compile time, are generally better than those that happen at runtime.


  • It can be pretty convenient to throw an error and be done with it. I think for some languages like Python, that is pretty much a prefered way to deal with things.

    But the entire point of Rust and Result is as you say, to handle the places were things go wrong. To force you to make a choice of what should happen in the error path. It both forces you to see problems you may not be aware of, and handle issues in ways that may not stop the entire execution of your function. And after handling the Result in those cases, you know that beyond that point you are always in a good state. Like most things in Rust, that may involve making decisions about using Result and Option in your structs/functions, and designing your program in ways that force correct use… but that a now problem instead of a later problem when it comes up during runtime.




  • I largely agree with this nodding along to many of the pitfalls presented. Except numbers 2s good refactor. I hope I won’t sound too harsh/picky for an example that perhaps skipped renaming for clarity on the other parts, but I wanted to mention it.

    While I don’t use javascript and may be missing some of the norms and context of the lanugage, creating lamda functions (i don’t know the js term) and then hardcoding them into a function is barely an improvement. It’s fine because they work well with map and filter, but it didn’t address the vague naming. Renaming is refactoring too!

    isAdult is a simple function with a clear name, but formatUser and processUsers are surprisingly vague. formatUser gives only adult FormattedUsers, and that should probably be highlighted in the name of formatUser now that it is a resuable function. To me, it seems ripe for mistaken use given that it is the filter that at a glance handles removing non-adult users before the formatting, while formatUser doesn’t appear to exepct only adult users from it’s naming or even use! Ideally, formatUser should have checked the age on it’s own and set isAdult true/false accordingly, instead of assuming it will be used only on adult Users.

    Likewise, the main function is called processUsers but could easily have been something more descriptive like GetAdultFormattedUsers or something similar depending on naming standards in js and the context it is used in. It may make more sense in the actual context, but in the example a FormattedUser doesn’t have to be an adult, so a function processing users should clarify that it only actually creates adult formatted users since there is a case where a FormattedUser is not an adult.




  • If you use it frequently, I suggest getting a GUI that have profiles or remember options so you don’t have to mess with commands all the time. I wrote my own little command line wrspper which is Windows only since I don’t have Linux to test on. Though it shouldn’t take much effort to add support.

    Makes it much more convenient when you don’t have to specify things like archive (ignore duplicates), filename to be “artist - title” (where possible), download destination, etc. Just alt-tab, Ctrl-v, Enter. And the download is running. And mine also has parallel downloads and queue for when you got many slow downloads.




  • The difference is, with a build pattern you are sure someone set the required field.

    For example, actix-web you create a HttpResponse, but you don’t actually have that stuct until you finish the object by setting the body() or by using finish() to have an empty body. Before that point you have a builder.

    There is noting enforcing you to set the input_directory now, before trying to use it. Depending on what you need, that is no problem. Likewise, you default the max_depth to a value before a user sets one, also fine in itself. But if the expectation is that the user should always provide their own values, then a .configre(max_depth, path) would make sense to finish of the builder.

    It might not matter much here, but if what you need to set was more expensive struts, then defaulting to something might not be a good idea. Or you don’t need to have Option<PathBuf> and check every time you use it, since you know a user provided it. But that is only if it is required.

    Lastly, builder make a lot of sense when there is a lot to provide, which would make creating a strict in a single function/line very complicated.

    Example in non-rust: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/328496/when-would-you-use-the-builder-pattern







  • If CO2 is a byproduct of another process, then I’d make a guess it is fairly cheap. The flaw here is that CO2 and H2 are both products of steam reforming using methane… Which is to say, the cheaper version might just come from using natural gas. Hydrogen has to be sourced from some energy consuming process, and that too is often from the methane steam reformation. So it’s certainly possible, but yet again is ready to become yet another “green” product made from fossil fuel. Doesn’t have to be, but I can be.

    Edit: to correct a discrepancy, the article mentioned hydrogen, but if the hydrgon comes from water used in the process then some of the issues of providing H2 is less big. But either way I expect this to be energy costly. Nevertheless, a lab made product is still something that doesn’t need large areas of land to produce.